How I got my start - Part 1

I always tell the students that I help mentor that knowledge builds on knowledge. Small things you learn will impact and grow your learning throughout. It can be easy to look at someone like me now and think "Man, he knows a bit about everything!" but not know just how long of a journey it's been over nearly twenty years since college (oh god I'm getting old). But let's walk that path again, if not for nostalgia's sake. So here we go, come with my on my 'stupid fucking journey'

My "journey" started back at my time at Mary Baldwin College (now University). It was my first job out of college - I was hired as the help desk manager - after applying for several months to jobs with no answer. I had one interview at James Madison University, but didn't get the job. Needless to say, I was extremely grateful to finally have landed a job, even if being a manager felt a bit out of my depth initially, and in June of 2007, I accepted the position at $27,000 a year (still got the letter and everything).

I had worked at the help desk at Piedmont Virginia Community College during my three years there and being a Computer Science Major at JMU furthered my skills in programming (Java) and other computing aspects.

Somewhat.

JMU, at least at that point in time, really focused on giving you the programming skills and shipping you off to Northern Virginia. I didn't want to be a programmer though and so your skill set quickly becomes limited. Unfortunately too, I was a terrible student. I failed a handful of classes (all of which I paid for myself, so I was only fucking myself over) and didn't really do anything outside of my coursework. Even still, there were limited options at that point in time. ACM was a thing, but I think I went to one meeting. UUG I don't recall existing until basically right out of college for me (it may have still be very early in its formation), but mostly existed to eat at El Charro. The "Video Wall" in Burress was the hot project that people wanted to work on, but even if it weren't over my head, it was really a project you needed to be in the "cool kids club" to be a part of.

I was fortunate to have grown up around computers, so help desk and troubleshooting were a decent way to get my start, but really would have benefitted from a mentor or finding ways to apply myself more.

Mary Baldwin's IT department was small. There were two managers, two systems administrators, two folks that worked on our CRM/ERP (running on an AS/400 no less!), a Blackboard (basically Canvas) support admin, a lab services admin, and me (with two students employees that I was in charge of).

The systems team was were I decided I wanted to be. They were rock stars, in my eyes, working on cool sounding things like Active Directory and VMWare (ESX at the point in time, there was no ESXi yet). They also knew the environment - they knew how all the pieces fit together and could troubleshoot complex problems. Sure, I could help fix someone's network adapter or recover their file, but knowing that a student getting registered at the school would hit one system, which would trigger another script, which would create their AD account and email, which would do something else. That knowledge only comes with being in the thick of it and paying attention.

Unfortunately, some systems admins of that time could be pretty up their own asses. They made their way there and were proud of it, but they sure didn't want to help out anyone else along the way. You might get some quick answers to specific questions, but asking to see how things work or "can you teach me..." were often pushed off.

At the same time, I don't think I was in a place to really learn anything just yet. I didn't really want to learn, I wanted to be in a different position. I wanted more money. I wanted the prestige. I was up my own ass and I hadn't even made my way anywhere yet. Maybe they even saw that in me and didn't want to waste the time or effort - hard to say.

I was good at my help desk job though. The student employees grew from two to ten. I started holding teaching sessions to show them how to replace hardware or troubleshoot specific issues. I started to earn my reputation on campus as the go to guy to help with problems.

In the spring of 2008, a Lab Services Administrator job at JMU opened up. I applied and got an interview and they sounded excited about me. I had started doing limited lab services work at Mary Baldwin by this point (one of the sysadmins left and the lab services person took that job - the lab position was removed entirely), so I did have some actual additional skills to help with the interview. I told my manager about the whole thing and they countered. On May 28th, my salary was increased to $42,000 - $15K more than I had started with the year before (still got that letter, too). I had solidified myself within not just the team, but the college as a whole.

In ways, simply focusing on my current job had really helped me mature and set some more realistic expectations. I still had a long journey ahead, but my mindset was finally getting into the right place. In the next couple of years, I finally kicked things up a notch...